


aretuza

by cassyl



Series: witcher femslash february [20]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Crushes, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 22:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30045387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassyl/pseuds/cassyl
Summary: After a difficult lesson, Yennefer comforts Fringilla
Relationships: Fringilla Vigo & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: witcher femslash february [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2191461





	aretuza

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to [@bamf-jaskier](https://bamf-jaskier.tumblr.com/)'s [Witcher Femslash February](https://bamf-jaskier.tumblr.com/post/641932214927523840/i-noticed-that-there-is-a-startling-lack-of-prompt) prompts!

There’s a noise out in the stacks—just a single scuff of shoe leather on stone, but Fringilla knows she’s not alone. She can usually rely on this section of the library to be empty, but no such luck today, it seems. She wipes hastily at her eyes, lest anyone catch her crying. Tissaia de Vries doesn’t tolerate weakness in her students, and Fringilla is determined not to give the headmistress any more reasons to be disappointed in her. She squares her shoulders before turning to face the eavesdropper.

“What do you want?” Fringilla asks. She can feel a wet tickle at the back of her throat and resists the urge to sniff. 

Yennefer leans on the nearest bookshelf like she’s just come to borrow some light reading. “I thought you might come here to lick your wounds.”

“And you’ve come to rub some salt on them instead?” Fringilla scoffs. 

Yennefer’s eyes widen, and then her expression goes carefully blank. “Why would I bother doing that?” With a toss of her flyaway hair, she turns to go.

“Wait,” Fringilla says.

Yennefer stops, her back still to Fringilla. 

“Why did you come here?”

Yennefer does something between a shrug and a derisive shake of her head. “I thought maybe someone else hated this place as much as I do,” she says, “but I guess even if you did, you wouldn’t want to talk to me about it.”

“You?” Fringilla squints at Yennefer, trying to take this in. Yennefer, who strives so desperately to win the headmistress’s approval, hates Aretuza, too? 

Yennefer finally turns to look at her again, eyebrows drawn together in a look of irritated confusion. “Well, why not?” 

“But you’re . . .” In the weeks since she arrived at Aretuza, Fringilla has been operating under the assumption that she’s miserable here because she doesn’t have what it takes to make it as a sorceress, and Tissaia is just biding her time until she sends Fringilla home, or feeds her to a sea monster, or whatever it is she does with students who don’t make the cut. But now Yennefer, who shows more promise than all of the rest of their class put together, is saying that she’s miserable, too? “You’re so . . .”

Fringilla stalls, trying to put into words the combination of stubborn determination and fierce intelligence and playful curiosity she sees in Yennefer. Things don’t come easily to her, but nobody else in their year works as hard as Yennefer does, or seems to want it as badly.

“So useless?” Yennefer supplies caustically. “So completely unable to control myself?” Yennefer steps closer to Fringilla as if she were advancing on the headmistress herself. “Such a waste of potential, piglet, what’s the point of even trying?”

Faced with the full force of Yennefer’s anger, Fringilla has to resist the urge to take a step back. But Yennefer’s fury isn’t for her, it’s for Tissaia, for Aretuza, for this series of trials that seem designed to be impossible to succeed at. Trials that _are_ designed to make them fail, Fringilla realizes, and once she does it seems so staggeringly obvious she can’t understand how she didn’t see it before. “It’s not us,” Fringilla says, almost breathless with the revelation. “Yennefer, we’re not doing anything wrong.” 

Yennefer is looking at her in confusion again, but this time the expression isn’t hard with frustration, but soft with shock. Her violet eyes are wide, his lips slightly parted as if she’s struggling to say anything in response. Fringilla can’t help wondering if anyone’s ever told her such a thing before, and the sudden certainty that Yennefer’s received vanishingly few reassurances in her life all but evaporates the self-pity Fringilla had been feeling earlier. If Yennefer—clever, brilliant Yennefer—can’t trust her own abilities, then what hope do any of them have, when Aretuza has been stacked against them from the start?

“It’s not our fault,” Fringilla says, and slowly, carefully she reaches out to touch Yennefer’s cheek. She’s not sure why she does it, only that she wants to. Yennefer’s skin is smooth and warm against her palm. “There’s nothing wrong with us.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](https://likecastle.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
